


Three Years Before

by thortillachips



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: F/M, How Do I Tag, I Don't Even Know, I Tried, I'm Bad At Summaries, I'm Sorry, Mythology - Freeform, Prequel, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-21
Updated: 2013-08-28
Packaged: 2017-12-24 05:13:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/935789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thortillachips/pseuds/thortillachips
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set three years before The Lightning Thief (hence the title). Once upon a time, a bunch of Camp Half-Blood kids went on an exchange trip to another affiliated camp. There, a meeting between two people that could be considered anything but coincidental happens, eventually setting the wheels in motion for these two individuals.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Arrival and The First Meeting

Five people gathered around a man in a wheelchair; listening as he read something out loud from a piece of paper.

“… and that concludes the briefing of this trip. Argus will take us to the airport where we’ll check-in and board the plane immediately. Don’t worry, we’ll make it in time just the welcome ball, we always do,” said Chiron with a chuckle, rolling up the paper he’d been previously reading from. “Well then, shall we?”

Luke took a good look at who would be tagging along on the trip. He already knew Steven Clarke was coming, a female from the Demeter cabin whom he recognized as Amy Crawford and Loire Dincht from the Athena cabin. There was also an Apollo kid along with them. Michael Yew, or something like that. He was unsure if he should feel wary or excited that he had such company with him for the next few weeks.

As they walked past Thalia’s tree, Luke stopped halfway for a moment and looked at it, scenes of what happened two years ago briefly replaying in his mind. It was something that never seemed to go away, and he had doubts that it ever will.

“Yo, Luke! You coming or what?” he heard Loire shout, waking Luke from his thoughts.

“… Thalia, take care of Annabeth, okay?” he murmured, slinging his duffel bag over his shoulder. He then hoisted his suitcase and made his way to where the others were waiting for him.

\----------

The flight took approximately twelve hours. They were greeted by Lekir, who was assigned to meet up with them after they had taken the train from Principle Town Valley and arrived at the Port Town of Crystallis Island. The school they were visiting was different than what they thought it would be. Luke had expected a layout similar to Camp Half-Blood, but it succeeded his expectations by a mile.

Upon passing the entrance, which was in the form a metal arch, the van they were riding in took a turning to the right which said “Side A” on the directional sign and drove all the way to a large building that had the sign “Auditorium and Classrooms” on it.

“Welcome to Crystallis Academy for Half-Bloods, or… well, more like the Academy for our descendants,” a woman with auburn-coloured hair greeted them. She wore full battle armor and was holding a bow in one arm. “I am Huang Yue Ying. Unfortunately, my husband; the headmaster is away on business but he’ll be back this evening in time for the ball. I trust that Chiron has already briefed you about the rules in my husband’s place back at camp Half-Blood?”

“It’s already been done,” nodded Chiron.

“Then I don’t have to repeat myself about it. The only thing I’m informing you is that you should be down by the ballroom at 1945 hours. You have this hour to get ready. Now if you’ll excuse me I have to get back to my archery lessons. These bunch of students seem rather… ‘promising’, to be quite honest. Dismissed!”

“Ehh, don’t worry. She’s not as stern as it seems outside of her classes,” Lekir laughed light-heartedly. “Though I wouldn’t recommend going up against her in the archery department. Unless you’re someone like Kasturi or your teacher right here; am I right, Chiron?”

“That’s enough of the flattery, Lekir,” Chrion chuckled and, turning to the campers, said; “You know where your dormitories are. I’ll see all of you later this evening.”

While Chiron wheeled himself off to the cafeteria with Lekir, the campers took the path parallel to it that lead them to a couple of four-storey dormitories and a bigger dormitory which obviously appeared to be the main dormitory. Connected on one side, to Luke’s far left, was a sundry shop while on the far left of the building was the infirmary. All of the buildings faced a circular courtyard that had a bubbling fountain in the middle with wooden benches surrounding it.

“Oh Zeus, my dyslexia!” Loire groaned, covering his eyes as he tried to read the sign on the main dormitory that read “Crystallis Academy Public Dorms and Teacher’s Residence.”

“What’s our room number, Luke? We’re sharing, aren’t we?” asked Michael Yew.

Luke took out a key from his pocket and examined the tag. “It says room 711. Floor 7, Room 11. Oh and…” He took out two more keys and handed them to Michael and Loire. “These are the other room keys for your guys.”

“Okay cool, now let’s get outta here. That uber bright yellow dorm over there by the light green one is more blinding than Apollo’s!” cried Loire.

The ballroom was a large room with a glass dome ceiling with a verandah that looked out unto the lake. Despite the crowd, Luke found himself away from the crowd that evening. He stood leaning against one of the pillars, watching on as couples came and went from the dance floor and having to repeat himself to Loire whenever he ran up to him and asked whether he had scored anything yet.

“Don’t be a social hermit, Luke! At least try to smile when someone greets you instead of holding that scowl you’ve been doing for the past few minutes,” Loire would say before running off again.

“I’m working on it,” he would reply, shaking his head.

“Would you like some refreshments, sir?” said a passing waiter, holding out the tray; bowing slightly.

“Thanks,” Luke nodded, continuing to observe the crowd as he gratefully accepted what tasted like a typical tropical punch.

His attention shifted to the people, mostly couples, coming in and out of the verandah. His eyes moved themselves across to a pillar near the doors leading to the same place, landing on a female who was also looking towards the lake. She had layered black hair that reached to the middle of her back. She wore a dark gray, sheer fabric halter dress that cascaded down to her feet.

As though she had felt his gaze on her, the girl suddenly turned to face him, catching him off guard; and gave him a friendly smile. Luke looked to his left and right, before tilted his head slightly to the side, as though he was saying; “Are you referring to me?”

Just then, Michael Yew came up to her from behind and bowed politely; it looked like he was asking her to dance and it looked like he didn’t take ‘no’ for an answer because before she could reply, he had already taken her hand and led her to the dance floor. 

Luke was the only one left without a partner, but that didn’t bother him too much. He was feeling a little too tired to be out there dancing, and he didn’t even know how to dance in the first place (given the situation he grew up him, he couldn’t really be blamed, right?). He decided to head back to the dorm early.

“You’re not going to take part in the waltz? That’s the height of the ball, you know,” a voice said from behind him as he was about to leave.

Luke turned around. It was the girl from before.

“Aren’t you going to dance with the one who just asked you to a few moments ago?”

She laughed. “No. He told me to come and get you since you looked awfully lonely.”

Luke peered over her shoulder to the two boys standing nearby, giving him two thumbs up. He made a reminder to strangle them when they return to the dorm later.

“Uh, I can’t dance, to be honest,” He shook his head, turning slightly red from revealing the embarrassing trait.

“Come on, you’ll be fine. Just try to follow my steps. Besides, I can’t dance alone now, can I?” she said, taking him by the hand and bringing him over to the centre of the ballroom.

Luke tried. He tried to copy her steps, and he also tried to look at other people’s steps, but it didn’t seem to work. He stepped on her foot, bumped into other couples, and at one point, he bumped into her to the point where they almost fell.

“Forget it. This is useless,” he sighed, pulling away slightly.

“It’s because you’re too stiff,” she replied encouragingly. “Let’s try this again. Just… relax.”

She smiled at him forgivingly and Luke decided to give it one more shot. They started out slowly and little by little, he began to pick up the pace. As the music reached its climax, fireworks could he heard from above them.

The both of them looked up towards the glass dome. Luke smiled to himself. Feeling her hands slip off his shoulders, he looked at her inquisitively and noticed she was looking past his shoulder towards the entrance, having a worried look on her face. Before he could ask what the matter was, she apologized and quickly walked away, leaving Luke all alone again for the remainder of the dance, not even getting the chance to even ask who she was.


	2. The Second Encounter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the second day of the exchange trip, and after being 'ditched' by his two camp-mates (not really though), Luke has a second encounter with the person from the night before and gets offered a jellybean as a conversation initiative.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah yes, to have this finally written after what, three years of it being stuck in draft form? I'm quite pleased to get around it *flops over* I hope you guys enjoy it! Also, do look out for a certain camp reference in this chapter :P

“Ugh the humidity of the place is killing me! I swore I just stepped out of the shower less than an hour ago,” complained Loire, using the collar of his shirt to fan himself as he walked along the training grounds of the campus with his two other mates, Michael and Luke.

“Well, we are in a tropical climate. What more could you expect? It’s a different kind of heat,” Michael Yew explained with an affirmative nod.

“You don’t have to lecture me about things I don’t already know, Mike. Son of Athena, remember? Doesn’t take away my right to complain! What say you, Luke? Come on, help a man out here, will ya?”

Luke, who’d been half-listening to their conversation, turned to look at Loire nonchalantly, though he was unable to hide the grin that appeared on his face soon after with his reply. “If you want my honest opinion, sometimes the things you spout out really makes me doubt your lineage.”

“WHAT?!”

Michael and Luke shared a laugh with each other upon seeing Loire’s injured reaction, before the son of Apollo decide to change the topic of the conversation as the three of them passed by the archery range. “Oh yeah, did you see the crew that came back from the quest last night? Apparently it was a tough one, from what I’ve heard during breakfast, at least,” he mused, letting out a sigh of longing as he watched some of the students shoot their targets.

“Was that what it was about?” replied Loire, and the two of them began taking about the said topic. Luke, on the other hand, began to let his mind wonder off to the scene he saw last night once he’d decided to retire for the night early after the waltz.

He’d seen her with the crew from the quest, and it made some sense to him now why she seemed so worried when the news first reached her. It could have been worse. Luke saw her sitting down by one of the crew, tending to his wounds. They seemed close enough; enough to make Luke wonder if she was his partner of sorts. Not like it really matter to him, anyway. Heck, why was he even thinking about it? He didn’t even know her name, for goodness sake!

“Uh, Olympus to Luke? Are you there?” Loire waved a hand in front of him, snapping the teen out of his thoughts as he turned to his friends with a confused blink.

“What?”

“We were talking about checking out one of the 4PM lectures over at Side A. You coming?”

“Uh no. I think I’ll pass on the lectures, thanks,” Luke shook his head. “You two go on ahead. I’m going to continue exploring the campus. I’ll most likely see you back at the dorms before dinner.”

Loire shrugged his shoulders. “Whatever you want, man. It’s not like we have a strict schedule to follow on this trip anyway. Chiron says we can take part in any activities we see fit… as long as it’s not against the rules, of course.”

“Alright then,” said Michael. “We’ll catch up with you later, Luke! Tell us if you find anything interesting.”

Luke nodded his head, bidding his friends a farewell before the three of them went their separate ways. As Loire and Michael entered the interior of the Academics building, Luke found himself walking towards the lake situated nearby the ballroom, sitting himself down by the pier. He began thinking of Camp-Half Blood, wondering how things were going over there. What time would it be over at that place? He thought about Annabeth, and how she was doing. 

In truth, he had to admit; he was feeling a little bit homesick. He found the feeling most unusual, as beforehand, he never even dreamed of the possibility of missing home, for obvious reasons. This was a different situation altogether. Sure, he had his buddies, and they seemed to be having a ball of a time on what they’d labelled as a ‘vacation’ but for Luke, he kinda missed the daily schedule of what went on back at Camp-Half Blood.

“Jellybeans?”

Luke looked up, feeling a weird lump forming in his throat. It was the girl from the night before. She looked about his age, if not a year younger. Currently, she had her hair tied up into a low ponytail, dressed in sports-attire consisting of a blue shirt and three-quarter shorts. A towel hung around her neck, a sign that she’d just come from a practice run of sorts (what sort of activity she came from, Luke didn’t know, nor was he curious enough to ask).

“Uh,” was all he managed to muster out as such an unusual offer. The girl sat herself down next to him, shaking the box so that two or three jellybeans fell into the palm of her other hand.

“Here. You can choose one,” she grinned, holding out her hand to him.

Luke looked the three jellybeans, picking up the light pink one and popping it in his mouth after he muttered a thanks. The girl next to him popped the remaining two in her mouth, and Luke swore he caught a glimpse of her wincing at the taste, probably realizing that either of them weren’t very good flavours and tasted worse when put together.

A moment of silence continued to pass between them after that. Luke felt like he should say something, but he couldn’t bring himself to. Instead, he let his eyes wander here and there around the surroundings- anywhere but to the spot to his right. She didn’t seem to mind the silence between them (as far as he could tell, at least… or maybe she was going through the same thing he was, wondering what to say). Well, that was until she was the first one to break the silence.

“Apollo kids dance quite well, don’t they?”

Luke gave a small smile in reply, shaking his head as he peered into the lake. “Well, I doubt that should come as a surprise, seeing who their father is.”

“That’s true,” he heard her laugh beside him. “But I can’t really say the same when it comes to their singing. I mean, I’ve never actually heard them sing before but I know their dad… well, it’s a little ironic considering his position but the last time he had a performance here- ah- let’s just say the sun didn’t shine for about two days.”

“You’re joking!” Luke found himself chuckling. The thought of that happening actually seemed likely in his mind, but it still surprised him a little. It was then Luke realized that the two of them were holding a conversation without actually knowing each other’s identity. He swallowed, suddenly feeling a bout of nervousness hit him for some strange reason.

“Uh, by the way… I’m Luke. Luke Castellan from Camp Half-Blood,” he introduced himself, scratching the back of his head. He felt like he should probably have said something more but for now, that information seemed to suffice.

“Lenore,” the girl replied, without mentioning her last name. “And yes, I’m afraid it’s painfully obvious where you guys are from. Your orange shirts sets you guys apart from the other students, to be honest,” Lenore nodded her head, indicating towards the shirt Luke and the rest of his campmates were wearing that day (which he now realized made them stick out like a sore thumb in the crowd).

“Oh, r- right,” Luke turned a little pink from embarrassment, looking away. Another wave of quietness passed by them, though he didn’t mind as much as he did before. He wasn’t usually like this; not back home at least. 

Back at Camp Half-Blood he’d be the one welcoming the new campers who’d made it through the barrier safely, showing them the cabin they’d be staying in until they were claimed- if they were ever claimed- that is. Here and there he’d also help them through things such as combat-lessons. It was a completely different story where he currently was, but then again Luke was in a completely alien environment, and he would have been lying if he said he didn’t feel like this the very first time he arrived at Camp Half-Blood.

“So, what’s it like?” Lenore broke the silence again, looking into her box of jellybeans. She picked out a yellow looking once, pulling another face as she popped it into her mouth while muttering “blegh, barbequed bananas again!” to herself with utter disdain.

“Excuse me?”

“Camp Half-Blood! I mean I’ve never actually talked to any of you campers before until last night, really, so I don’t know much except from what I’ve heard from others,” Lenore admitted, tucking some stray hair behind her ear as she looked at Luke with curious wonder.

“Well, I’d say it’s very different from here, that’s for sure” he began, shrugging his shoulders as he shifted position so that he was now lying on his back, staring up at the blue sky as he began to tell Lenore what it was like on the other side. She listened intently to his stories about the cabins, getting claimed, training and everything else he could think of at the moment while occasionally popping up questions here and there such as “Oh, are you guys really not allowed to sit at each other’s table during meals? How strange! Why?” all of which Luke gladly answered with an amused smile.

“You guys seem really different from them, you know,” she concluded once he’d finished their story.

“What do you mean?”

“There were a bunch of campers that came before you, but they didn’t come across as... well, as friendly as you guys. They seemed more warlike, serious, more disciplined… and a little intimidating. They had purple shirts too but we’re not actually supposed to talk much about them, especially to you guys so I don’t think it’s wise for me to say anything else.”

Purple shirts? More warlike? The first thing that came across Luke’s mind was the Norse demigods. They seemed to fit the criteria for the most part from what he’d understood anyway. Beside him, Lenore rose to her feet, shoving the jellybean box into her pocket.

“I’d better get going. It’s almost sundown and I don’t think I’d like going down to the cafeteria for dinner smelling like sweat and sport,” she laughed.

Luke nodded his head, getting up on his feet as well. “I should head back as well. I don’t know if my campmates are back at the dorm by now, though.”

“Okay then. It was talking to you, Luke. Maybe we’ll see each other around again really soon?” Lenore gave him a warm smile, excusing herself promptly once she realized she’d been staring at him longer that she should have.

Was the last sentence directed to him as a question, or to herself as a means of reassurance that they would meet again? Luke didn’t know, but he hoped that he would see her again. There was something about the company she gave him in that short span of time they communicated that made him feel at ease.

“Take it easy, Luke,” the boy reminded himself, shaking his head away from the thoughts. “You’ve barely even known her for a day.”

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve had the concept of this story for about… 3 years now (I even had a concept book of sorts to it shhh) soooo yeah. Well, I did have this chapter up once, and then me being me I fell too lazy to update since I first published it in 2010. But after watching the second PJO movie and with Maru and Ili ~encouraging~ me to start this thing up again, I guess here it is? 
> 
> **OH RIGHT I THINK I NEED TO MENTION THIS NOW SO PEOPLE WON’T GET CONFUSED:** most of the ‘big-shots’ featured here stem from Asian history. They are not immortals, but I guess you can consider that they have a relatively long life-span (and still manage to somehow retain their looks? something like that), so most of the students at the exchange camp would be their descendants, not direct kids, unlike their Greek/Roman counterparts. Comments/Feedback are appreciated, ofc.


End file.
